Photo Album
by Siriuslyfun19212
Summary: I took one last look around the dormitory for the night, ready to join the rest of Gryffindor as we celebrated the end of our years at Hogwarts. I sighed, noting every intricate detail I needed to preserve in my mind. I closed the door.


**Author Notes:**  
I wanted to write one last story before the seventh book came out. I wanted to write that final story written in blissful ignorance, completely unaware of the end. I realize that, once the book comes out, one or more of the three main characters in this story may not make it out alive. That's why I wanted to write it while I didn't **know** the end. The last story I could say I wrote before the greatest phenomenon in the history of literature ended. I know that Harry Potter will still live on, but-- come on. I know that you all can appreciate this if you started reading the series before it ended-- you were part of something huge. You were part of something amazing. You were part of the lucky ones who got to speculate and theorize. I am certainly proud to be part of that.  
So, with that note, I unveil the last thing I will write and post on here before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released. I'm going to Oak Park, Illinois for the release, so this really _is_ the last thing, because I won't have access to a computer until I come back on the 21st.  
I am going to cry so hard.

Love,  
Hayley.

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Photo Album

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"There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn't the **end** of the world, it's the beginning of a new life."  
-Unknown

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Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened.  
-Unknown

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I rolled over onto my stomach and stuck my hand under my bed, feeling around for anything I might have missed. Every year, I'd found something underneath – socks, garbage, candy, books. I would spend the first twenty minutes packing in a panic because I couldn't figure out where I'd placed something, and then I'd remember the bed's habit for hiding my possessions. Sure enough, everything I'd been searching for would be underneath the clump of bed sheets and pillowcases.

This year, it was my photo album. I could remember fitting new photos into it a fortnight ago. I still had a page left. What would I put into those?

I flipped past the first few pages—they contained the photos of my parents at various stages of their teenage lives and the small time they'd had in their twenties. They were moving about in their pictures, slapping each other playfully, messing around with Sirius or Remus, or Peter. Their wedding. Smiles. Lives.

After that, the pages were like a timeline of the years I'd had at Hogwarts—Ron and Hermione were in the vast majority of them. I had only known them for seven years, but those seven years were the best—and the worst—of my life. Without them, I would be some mentally deranged kid living in a cupboard, going to a school with a reputation as the _odd_ kid, the _baggy-clothes-and-multiply-broken-glasses_ kid, the _relative of the town bully_. Thinking back, I would easily, _easily_ take the life at Hogwarts, with all of the evil in the world, with all of its hardships, with all of its difficulties, with all of its adversities, with all of its misfortune, with all of its danger—I would take that over being (supposedly) safe in Surrey any day. No question about it.

The thing about Hogwarts is that it gives you everything needed to make you stronger in little, tiny doses—it's so discreet that you don't even realize it's given them to you until you're finished and you're looking back on everything. Every year, I learned more and more about everything and nothing at all. I learned about friendship. I learned about love. I learned about kindness. I learned about people. I learned about _life_ in _general_. They were things I could never have hoped of learning if I still went to _Stonewall High_.

I am so immensely grateful to be who I am today. I've come so far—killed a few bad wizards, made a few good friends, but all in all, I'm good. I am a good person.

I flipped the next few pages, seeing years pass before my eyes. It would be fun to go back. To relive it all over again, to come to the same conclusion over and over again. But I knew, still, that I could never do that. No matter how closely I stuck to what I did—or even however far I strayed from it—I would never be as proud of the end as I was with this one. It was _my_ end. My result. My doings.

I heard the door click and swing open, revealing Ron and Hermione—my saviors.

"Are you not packed _yet_?" Hermione asked Ron at the sight of his things strewn about his bed and the floor. "Really, now—and you've been downstairs celebrating all this time?"

"Can you blame me?" he asked, kicking a dirty sock out from the middle of the room towards his trunk.

Hermione allowed herself a smile. "No, I guess I can't. I suppose you _both_ should be downstairs now," she added, looking at me. "Oh, come on, Harry—how many End-of-Hogwarts parties are you going to be able to attend?"

Ron sat next to me and grabbed the photo album out of my hands. "Hermione's right, Harry. Stop being responsible. Hey, this is us!"

I chuckled to myself. "Third year," I told him. "I think it was taken after Hagrid's first class." True, they all did seem to look a little bit more chagrined and disbelieving than was usual.

Ron flipped the page. He laughed.

"What?" both Hermione and I asked, bending in to look closer.

"Harry, why are you glaring at the camera and trying to push it away in all of these?" Ron asked through his laughter. My facial expressions seemed quite dignified—well, they _attempted_ to look dignified.

I shoved my face into my hands. Through my fingers, I muttered, "Hermione tried to cheer me up when you and I weren't speaking."

Ron look to Hermione proudly. "Good girl, Hermione." She did seem proud.

I glowered at her.

"What?" she asked a little too innocently. "It worked, didn't it?"

"I tossed the camera out of your hands and it almost landed in the fire."

"Well, it was at least funny." She smiled happily.

"Whatever," I retorted, not really angry. "Turn the page."

"My turn," Hermione objected. She stole the book out of Ron's stunned grasp and flipped a page or two.

She tutted disapprovingly. "You have nearly nothing in here from fifth year."

"I was preoccupied."

"We're always preoccupied. I suppose you were preoccupied in sixth year as well?"

I nodded vigorously. "Exactly."

"Go easy on him, 'Mione," Ron defended. "It's not his fault that he has no qualms when it comes to remembering our lives together."

I shoved him off the bed. "Oh, like _you_ have any photos!"

He rubbed his leg and stood back up. "No, but _you're_ the one with the photo album."

"Nice, Ron. Nice."

He smiled at me, before his eyes landed on the photos the familiar book was now turned to. "Hey, that's this year!"

"Yeah," I told him. "The beginning of the end."

"I'm going to miss this place," Hermione said all of a sudden sadly, her eyes roaming over the boys' room as if it was _her_ dormitory instead of just Ron's and I's.

"So am I," Ron agreed, his eyes following Hermione's path. "It's going to be so… _different_ when we're gone. I don't think I'll ever get used it."

"It's like saying goodbye to home," I said. My fingers trailed the wooden bed frame, feeling it, trying to burn it into my memory.

"Oh, you'll still have us," Hermione assured. "You're welcome over anytime."

"Yeah," Ron sniggered. "She can get you a world-class tooth cleaning."

Hermione threw a pillow at him. "Shut it, you." Her eyes landed back on me. "It isn't so much the end as you think."

Ron threw the pillow back at her. "Yeah, mate," he agreed. "Any Weasley-Family-Holiday-Celebratory-Get-Together is extended to you." His eyes immediately snapped to Hermione. "You, too, Hermione."

Hermione smiled. "Thank-you, Ron. And likewise."

"I _would_ invite you over for family celebrations, but I really doubt the Dursleys would be very good company," I toned in sarcastically. "There's also the part where I don't live there, anymore." I was glad to say that. It lessened the anguish in leaving. They laughed.

We all stood in a mutual silence for a moment, thinking about who knows what.

Then, Hermione said, "It's really the end, isn't it?" her voice sounded watery. "School is _really_ over?"

Neither of us answered for a moment, considering our answers. Finally, Ron said, "Yeah, I guess it is." He whistled and ran a hand through his hair. "It went by fast, didn't it?"

"I still think it's first year and we've just been sorted," I said, grinning.

"I still think it's second year and we're brewing that _awful_ potion," Hermione laughed. "

"I still think it's third year and my _leg_ is being _mauled_," Ron joined. "Although, Hermione, _you_'re story is so much better than mine or Harry's." His eyes held a nearly hidden glint of amusement.

"Pardon?" Hermione inquired, her eyebrows raised.

Ron was silent for a moment, before a quiet, almost indiscernible sound made it past his lips. _"Meow."_

Hermione's face turned a ghastly, vicious shade of red. She threw the pillow back at Ron, continuously smacking him over the head. "Oh, Ron, you're so _horrible_!"

Both Ron and I were laughing, though, and Hermione eventually joined in, abandoning her attempts at beating up Ron.

"That year was my worst," she said sadly. "I was in the hospital wing for most of it. If it's not being treated for accidentally turning myself into a cat, it's for being petrified by a giant snake." She rolled her eyes. "It was not my year."

"Well, it's _kind_ of your fault," Ron told her sheepishly.

Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Well, first of all, you didn't check to see what kind of hair it was your plucked off that girl's robes, and second of all, you just _had_ to go to the library."

Coolly, she said, "I am going to pretend like I didn't hear that."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best."

I laughed. "Look at you two!" I told them in a tone that suggested it was something hilariously funny, something that _obviously_ needed to be laughed at. "Fighting all the time."

Hermione was amazed. "You think that's funny?"

"I think it's funny how you don't mean a single bit of it."

"Ha, ha, ha," Ron said. "Laugh at our pain."

"It isn't pain," I disagreed. "It's comedy. Fun-loving comedy."

Hermione smiled. "You're so sweet, Harry," she told me with just a hint of sarcasm.

I laughed once more before I eyed the photo album. "What else is in there?" I asked.

She flipped through it a few more times, looking to see if she had missed anything. "Not much," she replied dully. "We've looked at most of it already."

My face fell.

"Wait!" Hermione said. "Didn't Colin Creevey give you a stack of photos he'd developed for you yesterday?"

"What a nice guy," Ron said.

"Yeah," I told her. "They're somewhere in my school bag."

Hermione instantly jumped from her position of leaning against the bedpost and ran to my bag. She began to rifle through it, tossing out things she didn't deem breakable. "Aha!" she barked triumphantly.

In a dramatic stage whisper (well, he thought it was dramatic), Ron told me, "Roof! Roof!"

"Shut your face, Ronald," Hermione handed out monotonously. She flipped through the photos, looking for something of interest. Finally, her eyes landed on the perfect photo. Her face lit up. "Perfect," she breathed.

"What is it?" Ron and I asked in unison. We got up and peered over her shoulder.

It was a photo of the three of us underneath the familiar tree on the grounds. Ron was saying something to me and Hermione pushed us both over in amused frustration. I couldn't even recall it being taken.

"Colin must have taken it that day after our final exams," she whispered, as if speaking too loudly would break the perfect moment the three of us were sharing.

I was the one to break the silence. "Put it in the photo album," I told her. She nodded and did so.

"I'll have to ask Colin for duplicates," Ron stated.

Hermione agreed. "I'm going to miss that tree."

"So am I."

We stared at it for a few moments longer, embracing the solidarity we had stumbled upon. And then, with a quick _snap!_, Hermione slammed the book shut and handed it to me. I looked at her to see faint tears in her eyes.  
"Come on," she said. "Let's go downstairs. You can pack later, Harry, Ron."

I instantly agreed. "Alright."

I placed the album onto my bed and shoved my trunk into a corner, closing it.

As we opened the door, I could hear the sounds of the party going on downstairs. Ron and Hermione went in front of me. I turned around, sparing one last look before I followed.

I closed the door.

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The end crowns all,  
And that old common arbitrator, Time,  
Will one day end it.  
- William Shakespeare,

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You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough.  
-Joe E. Lewis

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End file.
